Method and apparatus for LDPC transmission over a channel bonded link

ABSTRACT

A particular overall architecture for transmission over a bonded channel system consisting of two interconnected MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) 2.0 SoCs (Systems on a Chip) and a method and apparatus for the case of a “bonded” channel network. With a bonded channel network, the data is divided into two segments, the first of which is transported over a primary channel and the second of which is transported over a secondary channel.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of copending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/877,598, filed Oct. 7, 2015, which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 14/510,971, filed Oct. 9, 2014, now U.S.Pat. No. 9,184,872, which is a division of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 14/165,005, filed Jan. 27, 2014, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,913,635, whichis a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/402,014, filedFeb. 22, 2012, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,638,808, which is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/833,827,filed Jul. 9, 2010, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,553,727, which claims thepriority benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.61/224,445, filed Jul. 9, 2009. Each of the applications identifiedabove is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The disclosed method and apparatus relates to communications generally,and more particularly, some embodiments relate to communications over abonded channel between nodes within a network.

BACKGROUND

In many communications applications, it is desirable to send as muchinformation as possible as fast as possible. One way to increase theamount of information that can be sent in a predetermined amount of timeis to send the information in parallel (i.e., send information over morethan one wire or channel at the same time). However, in somecommunications systems, such parallel communications requirecoordination between the channels that are concurrently sendinginformation.

In particular, in a home entertainment network, such as a network thatis operated in accordance with the well-known MoCA standard, sendinginformation over different channels requires coordination that makes itdifficult to use hardware that is not in close communication.

In a single channel MoCA network, the process of transmitting anaggregate data packet (A-PDU) over the network consists of these steps:

-   -   A transmitting node requests a time slot for the transmission;    -   A Network Controller (NC) grants the request if channel        resources are available;    -   The transmitting and receiving nodes transmit and receive        packets at the specified times.

For this process to be successful, both the transmitter and the receiverindependently calculate the appropriate LDPC forward error correctioncode parameters and the number of padding bits to be used.

When trying to coordinate more than one channel acting in concert totransmit information in parallel, coordinating such hardware can becumbersome and complex. Accordingly, there is a need for a method andapparatus that will allow for relatively easy coordination of hardwarethat can transmit information over more than one “bonded” channel at thesame time.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

The disclosed method and apparatus, in accordance with one or morevarious embodiments, is described with reference to the followingfigures. The drawings are provided for purposes of illustration only andmerely depict examples of some embodiments of the disclosed method andapparatus. These drawings are provided to facilitate the reader'sunderstanding of the disclosed method and apparatus. They should not beconsidered to limit the breadth, scope, or applicability of the claimedinvention. It should be noted that for clarity and ease of illustrationthese drawings are not necessarily made to scale.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the scheduling of the AllocationUnit (AU) by the NC.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the MAP processing by theTransmitting Node.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating the MAP processing by theReceiving Node.

SUMMARY OF DISCLOSED METHOD AND APPARATUS

Various embodiments of the disclosed method and apparatus for lowdensity parity check (LDPC) transmission over a bonded channel arepresented.

According to one embodiment, a particular overall architecture isdisclosed for transmission over a bonded channel system consisting oftwo interconnected MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) 2.0 SoCs(“Systems on a Chip).

This disclosure provides a method and apparatus for the case of a“bonded” channel network. With a bonded channel network, the data isdivided into two segments, the first of which is transported over aprimary channel and the second of which is transported over a secondarychannel.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Derivation of the Reservation Request Parameters

In accordance with the well-known MoCA 2.0 standard for homeentertainment communication networks, information is organized intoprotocol data units. Several of these protocol data units can beaggregated together to form an aggregated protocol data unit (A-PDU).For each A-PDU that a transmitting node has to transmit, a reservationrequest (RR) information element (IE) is sent to the network controller(NC) requesting a transmission slot for that A-PDU. An IE is defined asoptional information that is encoded in a format. The format comprises a“Type”, a “Length” and a “Value”. The Type is a numeric code whichindicates the kind of field that this part of the message represents.The Length is the size of the value field. The Value is a variable sizedset of bytes which contains data for this part of the message. IEs areused in messages such as MAPs, Reservation Requests, Probe Reports,Pre-admission Discovery Requests and Responses, and Device Discoverymessages, each of which are defined by the MoCA 2.0 specification.

In one embodiment of the disclosed method and apparatus, when atransmitting node has an A-PDU to transmit, the A-PDU comprising aparticular number of bytes (“M”), the transmitting node calculates thenumber of symbols (N_(sym)) required to transmit the M bytes of theA-PDU. If both the transmitting and receiving node are capable ofoperating with channel bonding and the transmission indicates either aunicast profile in channel bonding or a VLPER (very low packet errorrate) unicast profile in channel bonding by transmitting a physicallayer (PHY) profile value that is equal to 0×12 (i.e., the hexadecimalvalue equivalent to the binary value “0001 0010”), the number of symbolsN_(sym)is calculated as follows:

N_(BAS,1), N_(BAS,2): The number of bits per Orthogonal FrequencyDivision Multiplexing (OFDM) symbol for the two channels to be used(i.e., the primary and extension channels), respectively;

N_(parity): The number of parity bits per LDPC codeword (same for bothchannels);

kLDPC_(max,1), kLDPC_(max,2): Maximum LDPC codeword payload sizes fromEVM reports for each channel

M_(OH): Bonded channel frame splitting overhead (fixed at 34 Bytes topto cover the worst case)

M_(BAS,i): the (approximate) maximum number of payload bits per OFDMsymbol for each channel i.

M_(BAS)=M_(BAS,1)+M_(BAS,2): the maximum payload bits per bonded OFDMsymbol

Where

${M_{{BAS},i} = \left\lfloor {N_{{BAS},i} \times \frac{{kLDPC}_{{{ma}\; x},i}}{{kLDPC}_{{{ma}\; x},i} + N_{parity}}} \right\rfloor},{i = 1},2$The ratio p_(i) of the payload that can be carried by the primarychannel with respect to the extension channel is calculated by thetransmitting node with 16 bit precision as

The ratio p_(i) of the payload that can be carried by the primarychannel with respect to the extension channel is calculated by thetransmitting node with 16 bit precision as

${p_{i} = {{{{floor}\left( {2^{16} \times \frac{M_{{BAS},i}}{M_{BAS}}} \right)} \times 2^{- 16}i} = 1}},2$

If ┌p₁(M+M_(OH))┐−18 is a multiple of 4, then the number of bytes to betransmitted in the primary channel is calculated, by the transmittingnode, as:M ₁ =┌p ₁(M+M _(OH))┐

and as:M ₁=max(M, [p₁(M+M _(OH))]+4−(([p ₁(M+M _(OH))]−18)mod 4))

in all other cases.

In this last manipulation, we extended the primary channel fragment(minus the MoCA header of 18 bytes) to the nearest 4 byte boundary inorder to satisfy the requirement that each fragment is a multiple of 4bytes. To prevent that extension from making M₁ exceed the total numberof bytes M, the above equation caps M₁ to the total number of bytes M.Finally, the transmitting node calculates the payload of the secondarychannel as:M ₂ =M+M _(OH) −M ₁

The minimum number of LDPC codewords needed to transport M_(i) bytes iscalculated as:

${B_{{m\; i\; n},i} = {{\left\lceil \frac{M_{i} \times 8}{{kLDPC}_{{{ma}\; x},i}} \right\rceil i} = 1}},2$

and the number of OFDM symbols needed to transmit those codewords iscalculated as:

${N_{{SYM},i} = {{\left\lceil \frac{{M_{i} \times 8} + {B_{{m\; i\; n},i} \times {Nparity}}}{B_{{BAS},i}} \right\rceil i} = 1}},2$

Finally, the transmitting node calculates the number of OFDM symbolsthat need to be reserved as:N _(SYM)=max(N _(SYM,1) , N _(SYM,2))

Additionally, the transmitting node calculates a set of optimizedforward error correction (FEC) parameters, and includes the number ofthe FEC padding bytes M_(FECpad) in its RR. These parameters arecalculated as follows:

The first step of this calculation includes computing the number ofinformation bytes Imax_(i), i=1,2 that can be transported in the primaryand secondary channel in the given N_(SYM) symbols. This is accomplishedby application of the following equations:

The minimum number of LDPC codewords is calculated as:

${B_{{m\; i\; n},i} = \left\lfloor \frac{N_{sym} \times N_{{BAS},i}}{{kLDPC}_{{{ma}\; x},i} + {Nparity}} \right\rfloor},{i = 1},2$

Targeted number of LDPC codewords is calculated as:

$B_{{LDPC} \cdot i} = {M_{m\; i\;{n \cdot i}} + \left\{ {{{\begin{matrix}0 & \begin{matrix}{{{N_{SYM} \times N_{{BAS},i}} - {B_{{m\; i\; n},i} \times \left( {{kLDPC}_{{{ma}\; x},i} + {N\;{parity}}} \right)}} <} \\{Nparity}\end{matrix} \\1 & {otherwise}\end{matrix}\mspace{20mu} B_{{LDPC},i}} = {{{\min\left( {B_{{LDPC},i},N_{sym}} \right)}\mspace{14mu} i} = 1}},2} \right.}$

Target LDPC payload is calculated as:

${{kLDPC}_{{target},i} = {{\left\lceil \frac{N_{sym} \times N_{{BAS},i}}{B_{{LDPC},i}} \right\rceil - {{Nparity}\mspace{14mu} i}} = 1}},2$

Where

-   (kLDPC_(i), nLDPC_(i)) code parameters for all but the last codeword

${kLDPC}_{i} = \left\{ {{{\begin{matrix}{kLDPC}_{{{ma}\; x},i} & {{{if}\mspace{14mu}{kLDPC}_{{target},i}} > {kLDPC}_{{{ma}\; x},i}} \\{N_{{BAS},i} - {Nparity}} & {{{{if}\mspace{14mu}{kLDPC}_{{target},i}} + {Nparity}} < N_{{BAS},i}} \\{kLDPC}_{{target},i} & {otherwise}\end{matrix}\mspace{14mu} i} = 1},{{2\mspace{20mu}{nLDPC}_{i}} = {{kLDPC}_{i} + {Nparity}}}} \right.$

and where the number of information bytes is calculated as:

${I\;\max_{i}} = \left\{ {{{\begin{matrix}\left\lfloor {B_{{LDPC},i} \times {{kLDPC}_{\;_{i}}/8}} \right\rfloor & {{{{if}\mspace{14mu} N_{sym} \times B_{{BAS},i}} - {B_{{LDPC},i} \times {nLDPC}_{i}}} \geq 0} \\\left\lfloor {\left( {{N_{sym} \times N_{{BAS},i}} - {\times B_{{LDPC},i}}} \right)/8} \right\rfloor & {otherwise}\end{matrix}i} = 1},2} \right.$

-   (kLDPC_(1ast,i),nLDPC_(1ast,i)) code parameters (for i=1,2) are    calculated as follows:    kLDPC_(1ast,i)=8×Imax_(i)−(B_(LDPC,i), −1)×kLDPC_(i),    -   except if kLDPC_(1ast,i)≤0, in which case B_(LDPC,i) and        kLDPC_(1ast,i) are modified from the above values as follows:        B _(LDPC,i) =B _(LDPC,i)−1        kLDPC_(1ast,i) =kLDPC_(1ast,i) +kLDPC_(i)

where B_(LDPC,i) is now the actual number of codewords.

-   nLDPC_(1ast,i) is calculated as:    nLDPC_(1ast,i) =kLDPC_(1ast,i) +Nparity.

In addition to the number of information bytes, Imax_(i), the aboveequations also compute the FEC parameters (kLDPC_(i), nLDPCD_(i) and(kLDPC_(1ast,i), nLDPC_(1ast,i)).

The required padding is calculated by the transmitting node as:M _(FEDpad,i) =Imax_(i) −M _(i)N _(OFDMpad,i)=┌(N _(sym) ×N _(BAS,i)−(_(LDPC,i)−1)×nLDPC_(i)−nLDPC_(last,i))/8┐i=1,2

Notice that in the rare event that one of the two channels is grantedone more OFDM symbol than what is strictly necessary to carry M_(i)bytes, the number of FEC padding bytes may exceed the length of acodeword.

The transmitting node includes the summation of the two FEC paddingbytes values M_(FECpad,1)+M_(FECpad,2) in the field PARAMETERS of its RRIE. The transmitting node includes the required time slots fortransmitting the A-PDU, computed from N_(sym).

Scheduling of the AU by the NC

Once the RR IE is received by the NC, the requested AU (Allocation unit)has to be scheduled. The scheduling algorithm is understood by those ofordinary skill in the art and provided in the MoCA 2.0 standard. If theAU is successfully scheduled, then the NC will grant the time slotsrequested in the media access plan (MAP). If there is no time availablefor granting the AU then the NC will ignore the request. If there isonly partial time available, the NC grants a number of OFDM symbolsN′_(sym)<N_(sym). In this case, the transmission will be fragmented. TheNC calculates the number of symbols N″_(sym) that will be required forthe second fragment. This calculation is as follows:

The NC follows the calculations used to derive the Reservation RequestParameters (as noted above) for the requested number of symbols N_(sym)and derive the quantities, Imax₁ and Imax₂.

Using these quantities together with the quantityM_(FECpad,1)+M_(FECpad,2) from the RR IE, the NC calculates the totalnumber of bytes byM=Imax₁ +Imax₂−(M _(FECpad,1) +M _(FECpad,2)).

The NC follows the calculations used to derive the Reservation RequestParameters (as noted above) for the granted number of symbolsN′_(sym)<N_(sym) and derives the following quantities Imax′₁+Imax′₂

The NC further calculates the number of padding bytes in the primary andsecondary channel of the first fragment to make the fragment a multipleof four bytes M′_(FECpad,1)=Imax′₁ mod 4 and M′_(FECpad,2)=Imax′₂ mod 4,respectively.

Given these quantities, the NC calculates the total number of bytes, M′,transmitted in the first transmission of N′_(sym) symbols as:M′=Imax′₁ +Imax′₂ −M′ _(FECpad,1) −M′ _(FECpad,2).

The NC also calculates the remaining bytes to be transmitted as:M″=M−M′+M_(OH), adding the extra header overhead bytes for the secondfragment.

Then, the NC follows the calculations used to derive the ReservationRequest Parameters (as noted above) to derive the required number ofsymbols N′_(sym) for the second fragment transmission given the numberof bytes to be transmitted M″+M_(OH) (including the overhead forsplitting the second fragment across the two channels). Furtherfragmentation of the remaining aggregation unit (AU) of N″_(sym) lengthis also possible, by repeating this process.

MAP Processing—Transmitting Node

Once the RR is transmitted, the transmitting node awaits reception ofthe MAP. After the MAP has been received, the transmitting node encodesand transmits the A-PDU in the granted AU using the followingparameters:

-   -   FEC parameters (kLDPC₁, nLDPC₁) and (kLDPC_(1ast),        1,nLDPC_(1ast,1)) for the primary channel and (kLDPC₂,nLDPC₂)        and (kLDPC_(1ast,2), nLDPC_(1ast,2)) for the secondary channel;    -   Payload and padding parameters M₁, M_(FECpad,1), N_(OFDMpad,1)        for the primary channel and M₂, M_(FECpad,2), N_(OFDMpad,2) for        the secondary channel;    -   Bitloading PHY profile parameters, encryption key parameters        etc.

If only a partial grant is received for a given A-PDU, the transmittingnode follows the calculations used to calculate the scheduling of the AUby the NC (as noted above) for calculating the first granted fragmentFEC padding information M′_(FECpad,1) and payloadM′₁=Imax′₁−M′_(FECpad,1) for the primary channel and similarlyM′_(FECpad,2) and payload M′₁=Imax′₂−M′_(FECpad,2) for the secondarychannel. The MoCA header, aggregation sub-header and FCSs areconstructed for the transmission in each channel, and the transmissionof the first fragment is scheduled; then the process is repeated for thesecond (or more) granted fragments.

MAP Processing—Receiving Node

Upon reception of the MAP, the receiving node calculates the number ofsymbols in the granted AU from the information in the MAP IE. If thenumber of symbols is equal to the number of symbols requested N_(sym)the receiving node follows the calculations used to derive theReservation Request Parameters (as noted above) (given the number ofsymbols N_(sym)) and derives Imax₁, Imax₂.

In addition to the information bytes, Imax₁, this process also computesthe FEC parameters (kLDPC_(i), nLDPC_(i)) and (kLDPC_(last,i),nLDPC_(last,i)) that will be needed when the transmission is scheduled.

Once the OFDM symbols are received and the LDPC decoder has decoded theLDPC payload, the receiving Node computes the end point of the datasegment on each channel from the information received in the header ofeach channel segment. All data beyond this point is treated as FECpadding and will be discarded. The two segments across the two channelsare re-assembled into a single A-PDU and processing from that point onwill proceed as in the single channel case.

If the granted number of symbols is less than the requestedN′_(sym)<N_(sym), then the receiving node follows the calculations usedto derive the Reservation Request Parameters (as noted above) (given thenumber of symbols N′_(sym)) and derives Imax′₁, Imax′₂.

In addition to the information bytes Imax′₁, this process also computesthe FEC parameters (kLDPC′i, nLDPC′i) and (kLDPC′last,i, nLDPC′last,i)that will be needed when the fragment transmission is scheduled.

Once the OFDM symbols are received and the LDPC decoder has decoded theLDPC payload, the receiving Node SHALL compute the end point of the datasegment on each channel from the information received in the header ofeach channel segment. All data beyond this point is treated as FECpadding and will be discarded. The two segments across the two channelsare re-assembled into a single A-PDU fragment. The same process isrepeated for the reception of the second fragment and the two fragmentsare further processed.

While various embodiments of the disclosed method and apparatus havebeen described above, it should be understood that they have beenpresented by way of example only, and should not limit the claimedinvention. It will be apparent to one of skill in the art howalternative functional, logical or physical partitioning andconfigurations can be implemented to implement the desired features ofthe disclosed method and apparatus. Also, a multitude of differentconstituent module names other than those depicted herein can be appliedto the various components and elements disclosed. Additionally, withregard to operational descriptions, the order in which the steps arepresented herein shall not mandate that various embodiments beimplemented to perform the recited functionality in the same orderunless the context dictates otherwise.

Although the disclosed method and apparatus is described above in termsof various embodiments and implementations, it should be understood thatthe various features, aspects and functionality described in one or moreof the individual embodiments are not limited in their applicability tothe particular embodiment with which they are described. Thus, thebreadth and scope of the claimed invention should not be limited by anyof the above-described embodiments.

Terms and phrases used in this document, and variations thereof, unlessotherwise expressly stated, should be construed as open ended as opposedto limiting. As examples of the foregoing: the term “including” shouldbe read as meaning “including, without limitation” or the like; the term“example” is used to provide exemplary instances of the item indiscussion, not an exhaustive or limiting list thereof; the terms “a” or“an” should be read as meaning “at least one,” “one or more” or thelike; and adjectives such as “conventional,” “traditional,” “normal,”“standard,” “known” and terms of similar meaning should not be construedas limiting the item described to a given time period or to an itemavailable as of a given time, but instead should be read to encompassconventional, traditional, normal, or standard technologies that may beavailable or known now or at any time in the future Likewise, where thisdocument refers to technologies that would be apparent or known to oneof ordinary skill in the art, such technologies encompass those apparentor known to the skilled artisan now or at any time in the future.

A group of items linked with the conjunction “and” should not be read asrequiring that each and every one of those items be present in thegrouping, but rather should be read as “and/or” unless expressly statedotherwise. Similarly, a group of items linked with the conjunction “or”should not be read as requiring mutual exclusivity among that group, butrather should also be read as “and/or” unless expressly statedotherwise. Furthermore, although items, elements or components of thedisclosed method and apparatus may be described or claimed in thesingular, the plural is contemplated to be within the scope thereofunless limitation to the singular is explicitly stated.

The presence of broadening words and phrases such as “one or more,” “atleast,” “but not limited to” or other like phrases in some instancesshall not be read to mean that the narrower case is intended or requiredin instances where such broadening phrases may be absent. The use of theterm “module” does not imply that the components or functionalitydescribed or claimed as part of the module are all configured in acommon package. Indeed, any or all of the various components of amodule, whether control logic or other components, can be combined in asingle package or separately maintained and can further be distributedin multiple groupings or packages or across multiple locations.

As will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art afterreading this document, the disclosed embodiments and their variousalternatives can be implemented without confinement to the examplespresented.

We claim:
 1. A multimedia over coaxial cable communication networkcomprising: a transmitting node; and a network coordinator (NC) node,wherein: the transmitting node is operable to, at least, transmit aresource reservation request to the NC node, the resource reservationrequest comprising a first field indicating a requested bandwidth fortransmitting a data unit on a plurality of bonded channels; the NC nodeis operable to, at least: receive the resource reservation request fromthe transmitting node; and if an amount of available bandwidth is lessthan the requested bandwidth, then: assign an allocation of bandwidth tothe transmitting node that is less than the requested bandwidth, whereinthe allocation of bandwidth is for communicating a first fragment of thedata unit on the plurality of bonded channels; and transmit a MediaAccess Plan (MAP) message indicating the allocation of bandwidth to thetransmitting node; and the transmitting node is operable to, at least:receive the MAP message from the NC; and if the allocated bandwidth isless than the requested bandwidth, then: fragment the data unit into aplurality of fragmented data units; and for each fragmented data unit ofthe plurality of fragmented data units:  calculate, for each of thebonded channels, a respective FEC padding value and a respective payloadparameter; and  encode and transmit the fragmented data unit on thebonded channels using the respective FEC padding values and therespective payload parameters.
 2. The communication network of claim 1,wherein the NC node is operable to, if the amount of available bandwidthis less than the requested bandwidth, then determine a remaining amountof bandwidth for communicating a remainder of the data unit on theplurality of bonded channels.
 3. The communication network of claim 2,wherein the NC node is operable to determine the remaining amount ofbandwidth by, at least in part, operating to determine a remainingamount of bytes, including additional overhead bytes related tosplitting the data unit across multiple channels and across multipletime periods.
 4. The communication network of claim 1, wherein theresource reservation request comprises a second field comprising apadding byte summation value comprising a summation of, for each bondedchannel of the plurality of bonded channels, a respective number offorward error correction (FEC) padding bytes for transmitting arespective portion of the data unit on said each bonded channel.
 5. Anetwork node for use in a multimedia over coaxial cable communicationnetwork comprising a network coordinator (NC) node, the network nodeoperable to at least: transmit a resource reservation request to the NCnode, the resource reservation request comprising: a first fieldindicating a requested bandwidth for transmitting a data unit on aplurality of bonded channels; and a second field comprising a paddingbyte summation value comprising a summation of, for each bonded channelof the plurality of bonded channels, a respective number of forwarderror correction (FEC) padding bytes for transmitting a respectiveportion of the data unit on said each bonded channel; receive a messagefrom the NC node, the message indicating an allocated bandwidth fortransmitting the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels; and ifthe allocated bandwidth is less than the requested bandwidth, then:fragment the data unit into a plurality of fragmented data units; andfor each fragmented data unit of the plurality of fragmented data units:calculate, for each of the bonded channels, a respective FEC paddingvalue and a respective payload parameter; and encode and transmit thefragmented data unit on the bonded channels using the respective FECpadding value and the respective payload parameter.
 6. The network nodeof claim 5, wherein the network node is operable to, if the allocatedbandwidth is at least the requested bandwidth, then encode and transmitthe data unit on the bonded channels using, for each of the bondedchannels, a respective FEC parameter value, a respective payloadparameter value, and a respective padding parameter value.
 7. Thenetwork node of claim 5, wherein the first field indicating a requestedbandwidth comprises information specifying a number of time slots. 8.The network node of claim 5, wherein the message received from the NCnode comprises a Media Access Plan (MAP) message.
 9. The network node ofclaim 5, wherein the plurality of bonded channels comprises only aprimary channel and a secondary channel.
 10. The network node of claim5, wherein the network node is operable to request the bandwidth fortransmitting the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels only whena destination node for the data unit is capable of receiving the dataunit over the plurality of bonded channels.
 11. The network node ofclaim 5, wherein the network node is operable to request the bandwidthfor transmitting the data unit on the plurality of bonded channels onlywhen the data unit is to be unicast.
 12. The network node of claim 5,wherein the communication network is a premises-based coaxial cablenetwork.
 13. A network coordinator (NC) node for use in a multimediaover coaxial cable communication network comprising a second node, theNC node operable to at least: receive a resource reservation requestfrom the second node, the resource reservation request comprising: afirst field indicating a requested bandwidth for transmitting a dataunit on a plurality of bonded channels; and a second field comprising apadding byte summation value comprising a summation of, for each bondedchannel of the plurality of bonded channels, a respective number offorward error correction (FEC) padding bytes for transmitting arespective portion of the data unit on said each bonded channel; if anamount of available bandwidth is less than the requested bandwidth,then: assign an allocation of bandwidth to the second node that is lessthan the requested bandwidth, wherein the allocation of bandwidth is forcommunicating a first fragment of the data unit on the plurality ofbonded channels; transmit a message indicating the allocation ofbandwidth to the second node; and determine a remaining amount ofbandwidth for communicating a remainder of the data unit on theplurality of bonded channels.
 14. The network coordinator node of claim13, wherein the NC node is operable to determine the remaining amount ofbandwidth by, at least in part, operating to determine a remainingamount of bytes, including additional overhead byes related to splittingthe data unit.
 15. The network coordinator node of claim 14, wherein theadditional overhead bytes comprise first additional overhead bytesrelated to splitting the data unit across two channels and secondoverhead bytes related to splitting the data unit across multiple timeperiods.
 16. The network coordinator node of claim 14, wherein the NCnode is operable to determine the remaining amount of bandwidth by, atleast in part, operating further to determine a number of symbolsnecessary to transmit the remaining amount of bytes.
 17. The networkcoordinator node of claim 13, wherein the NC node is operable to, ifthere is no available bandwidth to allocate to the second node fortransmitting the data unit, then ignore the received resourcereservation request.
 18. The network coordinator node of claim 13,wherein the NC node is operable to, if there is enough availablebandwidth to allocate the requested bandwidth to the second node, thenallocate the requested bandwidth to the second node.
 19. The networkcoordinator node of claim 13, wherein the NC node is operable toallocate the requested bandwidth for transmitting the data unit on theplurality of bonded channels only when the data unit is to be unicast.20. The network coordinator node of claim 13, wherein the transmittedmessage indicating the allocation of bandwidth to the second nodecomprises a Media Allocation Plan (MAP) message.